‘Churning Upward’
Workers fill a frame with concrete during construction of a building. New construction continues to do well in the county as some new projects are on the way. MARTIN COUNTY
New construction points to encouraging future
BY SUSAN BURGESS
While it may not be a smooth upward trajectory, Treasure Coast building officials are confident that new housing and commercial construction will continue to grow in all three counties.
The seemingly endless flow of new residents is making sure of that. “Folks are moving from the south because a lot of them are priced out, and coming in from the Northeast and I think it will continue,” said St. Lucie County Director of Planning and Development Services Benjamin Balcer. “We’re churning upward. We’ve grown exponentially. We’re building six times more homes today than we were building in 2014 and four times more in commercial construction than we were in 2014.
It’s no secret that of the three Treasure Coast Counties St. Lucie is the one that embraces high growth. Martin County is well known for its slow, careful growth. Indian River County builds but also works hard to stay green in keeping with what residents want, said communications spokeswoman Kathy Copeland.
Residential new construction in St. Lucie and Indian River counties rose between 2023 and 2024 but dropped a little in Martin County. New commercial construction rose in all three counties in those same years.
With the small drop in Martin between 2023 and 2024, county building department director Jeff Dougherty pointed out that over the years homes grew in square footage and became more expensive, meaning the value of what was built grew even if the number of new homes dropped.
Thousands of new homes spring up in St. Lucie County developments. Some feature tightly packed homes while others offer more space around them. ST. LUCIE COUNTY
CONSUMER SENTIMENT
Men install the piping for Harbor Isles development in Indian River County. INDIAN RIVER COUNTY
Bumps in the road for all counties include the state of the economy, the sentiment of consumers, higher or lower interest rates, the COVID-19 pandemic and more. “When the economy is uncertain, as it is after every election, people are unsure about building. Even tariffs on lumber could affect the building industry,” said Deb Frazier, executive officer of the Treasure Coast Builders Association.
Looking back to 2015, Indian River rode the roller-coaster between then and 2024. While COVID-19 at the end of 2020 pretty much shut everything down, 2020 was still banner year for new homes. In 2023 the county saw a dip, but shot back up in 2024 to exceed all those years with 1,002 new home permits.
“There are many factors that can impact construction permit trends, said Indian River County Planning and Development Services Director Chris Balter. “One example is demographic shifts like Florida experienced during Covid, supply chain issues and regulatory changes. In Indian River County one might say public sentiment and its influence on policy and regulations has historically impacted construction trends. People here like open space, the natural environment and the quaint community feel.”
It is no surprise then that two larger projects seem to match what residents want. Liberty Park, approved in 2008, and Providence Point approved in 2013, incorporate the currently favored layout known as Traditional Neighborhood Design or TND, with a mixture of residential, commercial, recreational and public/civic uses. Typically, with this design neighborhoods are walkable with parks and gathering spaces and are intended to be a mixture of single and multifamily homes for people of all generations. The two total 1,460 homes.
After years of recovering from the effects of the 2008 recession, both projects are gaining momentum, Balter said.
Other developments, for instance several by DiVosta Homes, are also adding houses, including a new project by the Oslo Road-I 95 interchange called Emerson Oaks with about 170 homes. The new interchange is expected to increase development to its west too and has led to discussion of urban service boundary expansion which would pave the way for even more development. Another project now in planning stages, Ridge Top, proposes over 800 new houses in Indian River County.
MARTIN COUNTY OUTLOOK
In slow-growth Martin County where residential new construction trended down, though not by much, from 2023 to 2024, two significantly large developments, one still in review and the other already building and with one neighborhood completed, also feature the Traditional Neighborhood Design.
Newfield, in Palm City, will eventually have 4,200 homes on its 3,800 acres. Seventy percent of the land will be kept as a preserve. Newfield has the distinction of being the only development that includes a 170-acre working community farm. Its first neighborhood, called Rosette Village is complete. The developer is Mattamy Homes, best known for taking over Tradition from Core Communities in St. Lucie County.
Storie, also using the Traditional Neighborhood Design, proposes a 4,000-home development on 2,700 acres near South Fork High School, but it has a long history of delays. Plans were submitted to Martin County for approval in Sept. 2023, were eventually revised, and finally turned in to the county on March 10 of this year. There are a lot more approvals to go, none of which have dates set. Plans call for 40 percent of the land to be occupied by single and multi-family homes with parks and walkable neighborhoods plus a school and fire department. The rest would be kept for preservation with trails and a canal winding through the development.
Over the years from 2015 to now, Martin County’s commercial permits have taken off. Two big successful commercial projects came to fruition recently too. After years of indecision and wrangling, Costco finally opened in April on 49 acres on Kanner Highway by Martin County High School in the city of Stuart.
The South Florida Gateway distribution center on Kanner Highway is the county’s largest development, Dougherty said. The majority will be warehouse buildings with some built as “shells” for companies to move into and finish the interior, while some land is set aside for companies to build on from scratch. It also has room for housing, expected to be used by people who work in the vicinity.
SLC TRENDING UPWARD
With the aid of a lifting crane workers stack the concrete blocks needed for a new building.MARTIN COUNTY
St. Lucie County is trending upward both in new homes and in commercial projects. New single family home construction in the unincorporated part of the county zoomed from 119 permits issued 2014 to 696 in 2024. New commercial permits rose from 13 in 2014 to 40 in 2024. There were some dips in between but from 2020 on they sailed to new heights.
“I think it will continue,” said Balcer. During the 2008 recession a lot of projects stopped in their tracks but began to trickle back as the economy improved. There was a steady increase through the Covid years as people fled northeastern states hoping, perhaps, that they’d be better off in Florida.
But many projects that had halted in 2008 didn’t restart right away. Balcer said that by 2017 many had changed hands and the new owners had started renewing the permits. “I call them zombie developments,” he said. “They came back to life and began moving forward.”
Currently perhaps the largest, or at least the best-known development is Oak Ridge Ranches in the middle of the county where Range Line Road and Glades Cut-off Road meet, about five miles south of Midway Road. It includes up to 8,600 single and multifamily homes on 3,229 acres. About half of the 11 sections, which all go by different names, have been approved by the county commission. They run around three units per acre and include commercial and recreational areas.
The project, which includes at least four builders, butts up against the Port St. Lucie city boundary, effectively stopping the city’s sprawl in that direction. Three other proposed projects, further south, two residential and one industrial, do the same thing.
Commercial projects are trending upward too, says Maureen Saltzer, spokeswoman for the St. Lucie Economic Development Council. Generating the most buzz these days is the Buc-ee’s property on Indrio Road just south of the Indian River County line and expected to draw customers from both counties to its 76,000-square-foot store and 120 gas pumps. It will be on the south side of Indrio Road and adjacent to I 95 with entrances off Koblegard Road. At time of publication the start date for construction had not yet been announced, but it is widely expected to be ready for business sometime in 2026.
All in all, the consensus from building officials and building associations in the Treasure Coast counties is that with the continuing population growth, new construction has a rosy future. “I think it will continue,” said St. Lucie County’s Benjamin Balcer.